German daily broadsheet Süddeutsche Zeitung in an article on the Greek debt crisis has been critical of Berlin’s approach to the Tsipras government.
The German government, and Wolfgang Schaeuble in particular, have not made a secret of their dislike for the ‘leftist’ government of Greece or that they would like to see Tsipras replaced by a prime minister politically closer to the CDU neo liberal ideology.
All the previous aid programmes under more conservative Greek governments have failed. But with Tsipras in power Athens is sticking to the conditions of the programme, SZ writes. Tsipras has even gone to extraordinary lengths to accommodate the lenders. To the extend that, as a gesture of good will towards Brussels, he pushed out all his ministers who were resisting austerity and some of the harshest ‘reforms’ imposed by the lenders in a recent cabinet reshuffle,
Those German politicians who did not want Tsipras in government and would still like to see him out, have to accept that they could not wish for a ‘better and more compliant leader’.
However, with the second review of the third programme still open, the lenders still seem to be dissatisfied with the progress of the Greek government. But from a of Greek perspective, in a country suffering from increasing poverty, record levels of unemployment and falling standards of living, the situation appears different: in a study, 77 % of the respondents indicated that 2016 was worse for them than 2015 and the vast majority of Greeks do not believe that their situation will improve next year.
The strict implementation of third aid programme does not allow for any breathing space for Greece, adding more austerity measures on an economy that has been in recession for the last six years.
Anyone looking to invest in Greece can only be frightened by the extent to which Greece is pushed further into austerity and from increasing levels of taxation and the subsequent squeeze on domestic demand. And in addition higher taxes encourage more tax evasion and the shadow economy.
Athens is asked to do more than it is able to do the paper asserts.
Whoever wants to help Greece can no longer disregard the question of significant debt relief ‘but unfortunately, the German government does just that’ – hindering Tsipras’ domestic efforts.
All the painful ‘reforms’ the Prime Minister has managed to get through parliament and which the Greek citizens have passively accepted, was done on the assumption that the debt burden will be reduced to a sustainable level and that the country will be freed from perpetual austerity. Now these efforts are undermined by German intransigence in the light of the Federal elections. If the lenders refuse real and substantial debt relief they may well cause the Tsipras government to fail. And that is likely to bring back a new European crisis that is not going to serve anyone’s interests.
